Monthly Archives: September 2016

I. If you are American, SSC endorses voting in this presidential election. Andrew Gelman, Nate Silver, and Aaron Edlin calculate the chance that a single vote will determine the election (ie break a tie in a state that breaks an … Continue reading →

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This is the bi-weekly visible open thread. There are hidden threads every few days here. Post about anything you want, ask random questions, whatever. Also: 1. Comment of the week is JT on presidential life expectancy. 2. Some SSC readers … Continue reading →

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I’ve been trying to write a persuasive essay about AI risk, but there are already a lot of those out there and I realize I should see if any of them are better before pushing mine. This also ties into … Continue reading →

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500 BC: Buddha preaches a message of peace and compassion. 1411 AD: China and Sri Lanka go to war over the Buddha’s tooth. More on confusing effects of school entry age: in Brazil, students who enter first grade later get … Continue reading →

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Imagine a political historian discovers that Lyndon Johnson accepted a campaign contribution from a big Wall Street bank. Since Johnson’s policies helped shape the modern Democratic Party, everyone agrees the Democrats are built on a foundation of lies. “Republicans Vindicated; … Continue reading →

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[Epistemic status: Very speculative. I am not a neuroscientist and apologize for any misinterpretation of the papers involved. Thanks to the people who posted these papers in r/slatestarcodex. See also Mysticism and Pattern-Matching and Bayes For Schizophrenics] Bayes’ Theorem is … Continue reading →

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MealSquares is a "nutritionally complete" food that contains a balanced diet worth of nutrients in a few tasty easily measurable units. Think Soylent, except zero preparation, made with natural ingredients, and looks/tastes a lot like an ordinary scone.

Nectome is building the first brain preservation technique to verifiably preserve your memories for the future.

Jane Street is a quantitative trading firm with a focus on technology and collaborative problem solving. We're always hiring talented programmers, traders, and researchers and have internships and fulltime positions in New York, London, and Hong Kong. No background in finance required.

Metaculus is a platform for generating crowd-sourced predictions about the future, especially science and technology. If you're interested in testing yourself and contributing to their project, check out their questions page

Dr. Laura Baur is a psychiatrist with interests in literature review, reproductive psychiatry, and relational psychotherapy; see her website for more. Note that due to conflict of interest she doesn't treat people in the NYC rationalist social scene.

Beeminder's an evidence-based willpower augmention tool that collects quantifiable data about your life, then helps you organize it into commitment mechanisms so you can keep resolutions. They've also got a blog about what they're doing here

AISafety.com hosts a Skype reading group Wednesdays at 19:45 UTC, reading new and old articles on different aspects of AI Safety. We start with a presentation of a summary of the article, and then discuss in a friendly atmosphere.

Altruisto is a browser extension so that when you shop online, a portion of the money you pay goes to effective charities (no extra cost to you). Just install an extension and when you buy something, people in poverty will get medicines, bed nets, or financial aid.

James Koppel Coaching teaches software engineers how to spend less time debugging and write robust future-proof code. We’ve helped SSC readers be more confident in design decisions and articulate in code reviews. Advanced Software Design courses offered live and online.

Collin F. of Instacart is looking for software engineers to work there.

Triplebyte is building an objective and empirically validated software engineering recruitment process. We don’t look at resumes, just at whether you can code. We’ve had great success helping SSC readers get jobs in the past. We invite you to test your skills and try our process!

Giving What We Can is a charitable movement promoting giving some of your money to the developing world or other worthy causes. If you're interested in this, consider taking their Pledge as a formal and public declaration of intent.

80,000 Hours researches different problems and professions to help you figure out how to do as much good as possible. Their free career guide show you how to choose a career that's fulfilling and maximises your contribution to solving the world's most pressing problems.